Our story begins here, at the abbey Monte Oliveto Maggiore, about 34 km northwest of PIenza.
The abbey was founded in 1313 by the son of a prominent Siena banker. He was looking for the “most desolate place around” to prove that God would provide for the faithful. One of his founding companions was a Piccolomini…an ancestor of the Pope who founded Pienza.
About 180 years after the abbey was founded, the Benedictine monks hired Luca Signorelli, a prominent artist (he later painted a fresco in the Sistine Chapel), to create a series of frescoes depicting the life of St. Benedict. Signorelli got five of the panels done when he got a better offer…
…a chance to paint the interior of the duomo (cathedral) in Orvieto. He left the Benedictine monks at Monte Oliveto in the lurch.
Enter the protagonist of this story, Giovanni Bazzi…nicknamed Sodoma (Yes, the name means what you think it does).
The Benedictines hired him to finish the job Signorelli had abandoned.
The frescoes, now 500 years old, line the central cortile of the abbey. Because they are outside, they have been exposed to the weather…
…and looked somewhat the worse for wear. Fortunately, they have been recently restored.
Some of the panels depict actual events from the life of St. Benedict….
…like the 12 monasteries he is credited with building in his lifetime…
…or when he drove a group of harlots out of one of his monasteries.
Others dealt with the miracles with which he is credited…like this panel where he beats one of his monks to exorcise the devil from his soul.
Apparently, the monks at Monte Oliveto were happy with his work…
…because they recommended him to paint another series of frescoes at another Benedictine monastery, Santa Anna in Comprena (about 7 km north of Pienza).
This is the monastery we can see when harvesting olives. It was the location where The English Patient was filmed.
It has been retired as a monastery and is now an upscale bed and breakfast.
On our first trip to Italy, Carol and Roger had the privilege to eat dinner in what had been the abbey’s dining room. It’s where Sodoma’s second set of frescoes are.
Legend has it that after Sodoma finished his work at Monte Oliveto Maggiore, he got into a dispute with the monks there over what he should have been paid.
The dispute was not settled to his satisfaction, so he took out his revenge on the Benedictines at Santa Anna in Comprena.
Take a close look. Sodoma painted Jesus with a woman’s breasts. This may not seem shocking today, but it was scandalous in that era.
That was Sodoma’s revenge.
